Strategic Investment by GTU for Student Enterprise
April 16, 2024-GTU Office of Press and Public Relations
GTU student's enterprise is supported by investment from GTU Technology Transfer Office.
Gebze Technical University (GTU), one of the universities where the entrepreneurship ecosystem thrives, continues to support the ideas, projects, and enterprises of its academics and students. In this context, the university, through GTU Technology Transfer Office Inc. (GTU TTO Inc.), has become a 3% shareholder in the enterprise named Agriverts, founded by Abdullah Duman, a 4th-year student at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science.
Abdullah Duman, the founder of Agriverts and a GTU student, expressed the following regarding the support received from the university: "With this investment, GTU has once again demonstrated that it is an entrepreneurial university and supports its students in this regard. This investment process was developed primarily with the vision of GTU Rector Prof. Dr. Hacı Ali Mantar and the contributions of GTU TTO. We hope that this vision will contribute to the creation of value for GTU in terms of entrepreneurship, and we aim for this enterprise to create value nationally and internationally. We consider this investment we have received from GTU in the R&D intensive and high technology development process as a qualified and strategic investment, and we are proud of it."
Agriverts stands out as a national enterprise that enhances business and facility efficiency by developing plant-focused artificial intelligence technology, providing production and quality controls based on Software as a Service (SaaS) in vertical farming facilities. Agriverts also develops smart plant detection, climate control, and feeding control devices with artificial intelligence technology, focusing on the rapid scalability of its AI-based SaaS platform and integration with cameras, sensors, and automation devices that can be used extensively worldwide.
Senior Software Engineer Ahmet Lütfü Yazıcı and Agricultural Engineer Ahmet Faruk Can Özkan, who conducts R&D studies at Ege University, are part of the core team of the enterprise supported by TÜBİTAK and KOSGEB. The advisory board of the enterprise consists of Asst. Prof. Dr. Ümit Barış Kutman, Head of the Department of Biotechnology at Gebze Technical University; Prof. Dr. Gölgen Bahar Öztekin from the Faculty of Agriculture at Ege University; and Mehmet Emekli, founder of soilless agriculture greenhouses and vertical farming facilities in the private sector. Serhat Duyar, Business Development Consultant at Bilişim Vadisi, mentors the management team. Agriverts officially established itself in the last quarter of 2022 after acquiring TÜBİTAK BiGG Technology Entrepreneurship capital. In its first year of establishment, Agriverts conducted data collection, R&D, and PoC studies on artificial intelligence technology at the Ege University, Gebze Technical University Institute of Biotechnology's greenhouse, Bilişim Vadisi central office, and in a large-scale greenhouse in the private sector.
